Dream London

by Tony Ballantyne

  “Now hold on,” said a woman nearby, slowly. “Now hold on.” A great thought was working its way into her mind. “Now, come on. This isn’t right.”

  She shook her head, she looked up at the soldiers. And then, as if in a dream she walked forward to one of the Dream Londoners and tapped him on the chest.

  “Yes, ma’am?” he said.

  She shook her head again, and then her face cleared. Suddenly, she understood, and at that her expression hardened.

  “Don’t you Madam me,” she said. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  The Dream Londoner was a big man, and he gave a slow smile.

  “Keeping the peace, ma’am.”

  She frowned.

  “Keeping the peace?” she said. “Keeping the peace? Have you seen what’s happening in there?”

  The sound of brass reached a peak, and the third band approached, led by a great square banner, embroidered with all the birds of the world. Orioles and jays, robins and peacocks, emus and parakeets and sparrows. I felt my heart sinking as I saw the birds, I knew which band this would be, even before I read the name embroidered on the banner.

  Egg Market Silver Band.

  And there, at the back right hand corner, marching to time, dark hair tied up in a bun, was Anna. She wasn’t playing her cornet at the moment, merely marching. She saw me, I’m sure, but she ignored me, she looked straight ahead and marched on, down the wide road that had opened up amongst the partying crowd.

  “Let her go,” said Amit. “She’s made up her mind.”

  The Egg Market band marched towards the gates. Up ahead of them the soldiers of the Ninth Dream Londoners took up positions across the gate to stop the band from entering the park. Still the band marched on. The soldiers held their rifles at their sides as the band drew closer.

  “Will they shoot the band?” asked Mister Monagan.

  The drummer sounded taps and the band stopped marching. The drummer sounded taps once more, and the music ceased. I hurried forward through the silence, Mister Monagan at my side.

  A sergeant in a bright orange tunic walked forward to face the trombones.

  “Go home!” he called.

  Anna left the ranks and moved to face him.

  “Let us through,” she said quietly.

  The sergeant laughed. “Listen, little miss...”

  I was at his ear in an instant.

  “Sergeant,” I said. “This young woman and her friends are showing more courage than anyone else in this shitty place. I don’t think that Little Miss is an appropriate form of address. Do you?”

  The sergeant looked at Anna and saw something in her eyes.

  “Sir, I think you’re correct,” he said. He lowered his voice.

  “Listen, miss. Don’t march in there. It’s certain death. We came through the park not half an hour ago from the new portal. The things we’ve seen in there...”

  Anna took a deep breath.

  “Sergeant,” she said. “Please order your men to stand aside please.”

  The sergeant shook his head.

  “I ain’t going to do that, miss. There’s worse things than death in there. Especially for a pretty young woman such as yourself.”

  Anna was pale. She was terrified, I could tell. Her face wore the same shiny sheen as the rest of the band. And yet, stronger than her fear, I could see her determination.

  “Worse things than death in there, Sergeant?” she said. “But, the thing is you see, if we don’t march, then those things, those things that are worse than death will soon be in here with us. Those things will be living here, in Dream London.”

  The sergeant produced a large white handkerchief from his pocket and used it to wipe his lips.

  “That’s as may be, miss, but...”

  “And surely,” continued Anna, ignoring him, “isn’t it better to experience certain death now, than to wait for worse than death in a few days’ time?”

  The sergeant wiped his lips once more.

  “Miss,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. But I can’t let you do this.”

  “Why not?” asked Anna. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you? You know what it means to sacrifice yourself to a higher cause.”

  The Sergeant waved his hand around the crowd.

  “You call these people a higher cause?”

  “They may yet be,” said Anna. “Tell your men to stand aside.”

  The sergeant gazed at her, his lips moving. He made to take hold of her, thought better of it, and then stood back and drew himself to his full height.

  “Miss!” he said, saluting. “The best of British to you. What there is left of it, anyway.”

  A look of terror flickered across Anna’s face, but she quickly suppressed it.

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” she said. She turned to the waiting band.

  “Drummer,” she called. “Sound taps.”

  The drummer beat the rhythm to begin. The soldiers pulled back, yellow uniforms clustering at the sides of the park. The surrounding crowd was catching on.

  “No!” shouted someone.

  “Sergeant! Stop them!”

  “Do your job, soldiers! Stop them.”

  The band began to play, eight bars of some death or glory march, and then they began to march. Left, right, left, right, left. All those children marching to their deaths, and Anna, terrified Anna, bravely marching along with them.

  A mother ran forward and began to beat the sergeant on the chest.

  “Stop them!” she shouted. She was crying. “What’s the matter with you? Are you afraid?”

  “Not I,” said the sergeant. “Just ashamed. They’re doing what you should be doing, madam. What we all should be doing. For Heaven’s sake...”

  He undid his jacket and walked to the side of the band. He took off the jacket and let it fall as he took up his place, marching alongside the horns.

  Someone ran forward from the crowd and seized hold of one of the cornet players. A young boy of around ten years of age.

  “Let me go!” he called, hitting at his captor with his free hand.

  “Let him go!” called someone in the crowd.

  “What?” said his captor, and the boy shook himself loose and was gone, off to rejoin the band.

  “Mister Monagan,” I said, pulling out the flare gun. “I think it’s time.”

  “I think so too, Mister James.”

  I fired the gun into the air. A golden light rose and then stopped, hovering above me. An animal roar sounded, the sound of an army rising up.

  “I hope it’s enough,” I said.

  The band marched on, and Anna drew level with me, walking towards the entrance to the park.

  I heard shouting all around me. I saw men in football scarves pressing forward, I heard the voices of Gentle Annie and my whores spurring people on...

  And finally, there and then in the middle of Snakes and Ladders Square, the magic finally ignited. Suppressed for over a year, submerged by the scent of pollen, diluted by sex and food and a hundred other distractions, the old magic that had built London finally gathered itself together for one last glorious fight against the invasion.

  Someone began to clap. Then another person, then another. The applause took hold and spread through the crowd, burning like a fire.

  I stepped forward.

  “Okay! Who’s going to let a group of schoolkids show us how to fight?”

  “Not us, Captain Jim!” called the football fans.

  “Not us, Captain Jim!” called the whores’ men.

  “Not us Captain Jim!” called the other bystanders who finally got it.

  “Company!” called the leader of the Ninth Dream Londoners. “Form up! Escort them!”

  “Join in boys!” The last was from a sergeant of the Dream London Constabulary. Even the Boys in Taupe had seen the way the wind was blowing and were daring to show their faces.

  The Boys in Taupe. That gave me an idea.

  “Come on then, fellow Londoners,” I cal
led, gripped by the excitement of the crowd. “Let’s go!”

  “But Mister James, we need to head towards Angel Tower!”

  I wasn’t listening to Mister Monagan. We had all seen where the band had gone, we had heard the children screaming.

  The applause was growing louder all the time. With it came a guttural roar, the anger of the crowd growing and finding voice at last. A crowd of people, all thinking the same thing. All that rage focused in the same direction.

  The front of the band crossed into the park. The sound of the crowd rose and rose, and I began to run, run towards the park entrance...

  We plunged forwards into the park, a disorganised rabble that was slowly becoming an army...

  SIXTEEN

  THE PARK

  IT FELT DIFFERENT inside the park. The air was colder and fresher, there was no smell of human breath upon it, no scent of 14,000 years of human civilisation. Plunging through the gate I was suddenly breathing air untainted by coal smoke or petrol fumes. Air that had never been scented with baking bread or the sweet smell of human shit. At first glance the parks seemed so familiar... but the feeling quickly passed. There was something other about everything there, something shifting and impermanent. The silver sun seemed to shine down from many directions at once. What seemed like paths shifted underfoot. They were gravel rivers, flowing from one place to another. What seemed like lines of trees ran along like lampposts seen through the window of a moving car.

  The sound of the brass band seemed alien in that place. Mechanical order was out of place in this wild machine. The grass beneath my feet was soft and neatly clipped, but there was an energy about it, something in its green smell, that suggested that it hadn’t been tamed by human gardeners, but had rather spread its way here from some wild steppe in some distant land. The music seemed to empty itself in that air. The players were losing heart, you could hear it in their tone.

  Movement.

  Statues rose up on the plinths, sliding upwards from beneath the ground. Some of the children stopped playing. I saw a young boy begin to cry, but, and I think this is possibly the bravest thing I have ever seen, he raised his cornet back to his lips.

  “Drop your instruments!” I cupped my hands over my mouth to shout. “Drop your instruments! You’ve made your point! Look at my army! Why carry on playing now?”

  The music faded away as the band saw the crowd of people that were pushing their way through the gates. An army of men in scarlet and silver and brown and cream, an army of women in short skirts or petticoats.

  The statues were moving towards the band. I saw Anna hold up her hand, I saw her gently place her cornet upon the ground. One by one, the rest of the band did the same.

  The crowd held their breath as the statues paused, then turned and climbed back on their plinths.

  “What are those statues?” I asked. The cold figures stood on their plinths, watching my army. Seen from this side of the gates they no longer looked as if they were made of stone.

  “Those are not statues, Mister James. Those aren’t statues at all.”

  “Then what are they?”

  “Workers. They’re made of mercury. They are owned by the people out West by the mercury seas. They take on the shape that the job requires. They have no thoughts, Mister James. They are just there to process.”

  “Process what?”

  “Whatever.”

  “How do we fight them, Mister Monagan?”

  “You can’t. They are as strong as three men, Mister James.”

  “Then we will fight them four men at a time.”

  “If we need to. The statues are standing still. For the moment.”

  I looked around. He was right. For the moment.

  “This place isn’t still, Mister Monagan,” I said. What looked like a trench dug out from the ground, ready to be planted with a line of roses or tulips, turned out to be a moving stream of mud. It was travelling in the opposite direction to the gravel of the paths.

  “Everything moves, Mister James. Everything moves to other worlds.”

  “Sir!”

  The sergeant of the Dream Londoners stood at my side. He pulled off a smart salute.

  “We’re here now, sir! What would you have us do?”

  Something glinted, just beyond the closest line of trees.“Sir! Are you okay?”

  “Sorry,” I said, putting my hand to my face. “Sorry, I was distracted. Listen, Sergeant, I want you to organise a group of men to hold the entrance to the park. Don’t let anyone else through. Specifically, don’t let any more people from the workhouses through.”

  “Very good, sir. And how about you? What will you do?”

  “We’re going to fetch those that we can back home to safety.”

  Mister Monagan was hopping from foot to foot at my side.

  “But sir, they don’t want to come.”

  “That was then,” I said. “I think I know how to change their minds.”

  WE TROTTED ACROSS the park, over shifting rivers of gravel under a silver sky. The world here was so much bigger, it bent around us, it seemed to go on for ever. We ran past waiting overseers, the people from the other lands, watching and wondering if the stream of grey labour would resume from the gates. We ran past silver statues, waiting on their plinths, still as stone.

  Ahead of us we saw the end of a grey crocodile of workers, making its way to the portal by the white and gold towers of the new Buckingham Palace. Dark slits were set in the walls of the castle, and I wondered what could be looking out at this scene.

  Mister Monagan flapped along at my left. Someone was running at my right.

  “Anna,” I said. “You’ve done your bit. Go back home.”

  “You go home,” she said.

  I didn’t bother arguing.

  We reached the tail end of the crocodile of workers, we raced past grey-suited men and women who looked at us as we went by. On and on, past lines and lines of people, until we came to the head of the line. Two women in leather jerkins walked at the front. I pushed my way before them and halted, staring up at them. They were both at least a foot taller than me, seven feet at least. They had a strong, cold beauty about them that would have scared the hell out of my former clients.

  They certainly frightened me.

  The pair looked down at me. Behind them, the gold and white towers of Buckingham Palace reached into the air.

  “Move out of the way,” said one of them.

  Mister Monagan and Anna took their places at my side.

  “In a moment,” I said. Again, something glinted in my eye, a flash that came from beyond one of the lines of trees.

  “In a moment,” I repeated. “I want to ask you a question first.”

  “What?” said one of the blonde giants.

  I put my hand in my pocket.

  “Don’t pull out your gun, Mister James,” hissed Mister Monagan. “That might annoy them.”

  “I wasn’t going for my gun,” I said. I pulled my hand from my pocket and passed something across to one of the giants.

  “Read this,” I said.

  They both looked down at the Truth Script. I crossed my fingers. Surely it would work on these two?

  “Where are you taking these people?” I asked.

  “The Icefields of Lower Stark,” said one of the women.

  “And what awaits them there?”

  “A slow death. This is a Truth Script. You tricked us.”

  “How terrible of me. How will these people die a slow death?”

  “We will feed them enough to keep them alive for around six months whilst they work on the construction of the Transworld railway.”

  “Only six months? Why not longer?”

  “It has been worked out. The cost of the workers plus food against the labour they can expend in their lifetime. This is the most efficient use of our investment.”

  The workers heard that. Finally, it was enough to shake them from their torpor. A murmur ran down the lines. It became a roar. The w
orkers broke ranks, they became a crowd, they surged forward and engulfed the two blonde women.

  And that was that. The rest of the Dream London army was arriving now. It had followed us here and it was ready to fight.

  “You did it, Mister James!” called Mister Monagan, dancing with joy. “You did it!”

  I passed Anna the Truth Script.

  “You know what to do,” I said. “Go after the others.”

  She took the script and looked at me. She looked as if she was about to say something.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing,” she said and turned and ran off down the path. Some of the grey workers ran after her, off to help spread the word.

  “You did it!” repeated Mister Monagan. “But what now? Look, the statues are moving.”

  Sure enough they were, climbing down from their plinths.

  “Ignore them, Mister Monagan. My army can take care of them. We’ve got other things to do...”

  There was that glint again, coming from the trees that lined the path.

  “But where are we going?”

  “Follow me, Mister Monagan.”

  We worked our way towards the trees, stepping aside for the statues as they ran across the grass, heading towards the army. Mister Monagan was right. The statues were as strong as three people. But I was right too. Four people could defeat them. Four football fans could hold an arm or leg each. A fifth could put the boot in. Brutal, but effective.

  “We should help them!” insisted Mister Monagan.

  I dived between the line of trees, reached around behind the trunk of one. The man hiding there gave a yelp as I seized him by his coat.

  “What are you doing, spying on me?” I said. The man cringed, as if I was about to hit him. The mood I was in at the time, he wasn’t far wrong.

  “If you touch me you’ll regret it,” he said. He waggled a finger at me, his face blushing a beetroot shade as he did so.

  “No,” I said. “No, no, no! That’s not how you make a threat. You’ve got to mean it. All you’ve done is irritate me further. I’m more likely to hit you now.”